I-T IS­SUES 5,100 NO­TICES FOR SUS­PI­CIOUS DE­POSITS POST CASH BAN

The in­come tax de­part­ment is­sued about 5,100 no­tices for high-value sus­pi­cious de­posits post de­mon­eti­sa­tion and peo­ple have ad­mit­ted to undis­closed in­come of over Rs 5,400 crore. The de­part­ment has con­ducted more than 1,100 search and sur­vey op­er­a­tions and is­sued about 5,100 no­tices for ver­i­fi­ca­tion of sus­pi­cious trans­ac­tions of high-value cash de­posits. "These ac­tions led to seizure of valu­ables of more than Rs 610 crore which in­cludes cash of Rs 513 crore and ad­mis­sion of undis­closed in­come of more than Rs 5,400 crore till Jan­uary 10, 2017," Min­is­ter of State for Fi­nance San­tosh Kumar Gang­war said in a writ­ten re­ply in the Ra­jya Sabha The de­part­ment has iden­ti­fied 17.92 lakh in­di­vid­u­als whose tax pro­files were not in line with the cash de­posits made by them dur­ing the 50-day de­mon­eti­sa­tion win­dow that ended on De­cem­ber 30, 2016. As part of the ini­tial phase, it had sought on­line re­sponse on source of cash de­posits made by these peo­ple. The In­come Tax De­part­ment has re­ceived re­sponses from 8.38 lakh per­sons out of the 18 lakh SMS/email queries it had sent to 17.92 lakh peo­ple for sus­pi­cious de­posits post de­mon­eti­sa­tion. more than 12 lakh re­sponses have been re­ceived from 8.38 lakh dis­tinct PANs/per­sons which are un­der ver­i­fi­ca­tion. The tax pro­files of 17.92 lakh peo­ple were "not in line" with the cash de­posits made by them dur­ing the 50-day de­mon­eti­sa­tion pe­riod. Un­der the Op­er­a­tion Clean Money launched on Jan­uary 31, the I-T de­part­ment sought on­line re­sponse on source of cash de­posited by these per­sons. The govern­ment had on Novem­ber 8, 2016, de­mon­e­tised 500 and 1,000 ru­pee notes and asked hold­ers of such cur­ren­cies to de­posit them in bank ac­counts by De­cem­ber 30. "In case ex­pla­na­tion of source of cash is found jus­ti­fied, the ver­i­fi­ca­tion is closed. The ver­i­fi­ca­tion is also closed if the cash de­posit is de­clared un­der the Prad­han Mantri Garib Kalyan Yo­jana," Gang­war said. He said an ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion in non-com­pli­ant cases is taken as per law, which in­cludes searches, sur­veys, as­sess­ment of in­come, levy of taxes, penal­ties and fil­ing of pros­e­cu­tion com­plaints in crim­i­nal courts. In a separate re­ply to a ques­tion in the Lok Sabha, Gang­war said dur­ing April 1, 2014 to De­cem­ber 31, 2016, the I-T de­part­ment con­ducted searches in 1,838 groups of as­sessees, seiz­ing undis­closed as­sets worth Rs 2,607 crore. These as­sessees ad­mit­ted to undis­closed in­come of Rs 33,210 crore. Dur­ing the same pe­riod, the de­part­ment con­ducted 14,472 sur­veys that re­sulted in de­tec­tion of undis­closed in­come of Rs 31,929 crore. In the com­pli­ance win­dow pro­vided un­der the 2015 for­eign black money law, 648 dis­clo­sures in­volv­ing undis­closed for­eign as­sets worth Rs 2,476 crore were made. Fur­ther, un­der the in­come dec­la­ra­tion scheme 2016, the govern­ment has re­ceived 64,275 dec­la­ra­tions with undis­closed in­come of Rs 65,250 crore. To a query on the es­ti­mated amount of black money, Gang­war said, "There is no of­fi­cial es­ti­ma­tion of quan­tum of black money within and out­side the coun­try." To an­other query, Gang­war said en­force­ment ac­tions of the tax de­part­ment dur­ing April 1, 2014 to De­cem­ber 21, 2016, have led to ad­mis­sion of undis­closed in­come of more than Rs 60,000 crore and seizure of undis­closed as­sets worth Rs 2,607 crore. "About Rs 8,400 crore have been brought to tax on ac­count de­posits made in un­re­ported for­eign bank ac­counts in HSBC cases in last about 2 years and about Rs 8,500 crore of cred­its in the undis­closed for­eign ac­counts of In­di­ans whose names were dis­closed by the In­ter­na­tional Con­sor­tium of In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ists (ICIJ) have been de­tected," he said. In an­other re­ply, Gang­war said the tax de­part­ment has con­ducted 848 searches dur­ing April-De­cem­ber 2016 and seized as­sets of Rs 1,133 crore. The undis­closed in­come ad­mit­ted to in the said searches was Rs 11,856 crore. Fur­ther, 5,015 sur­veys were con­ducted in April-De­cem­ber which brought to light undis­closed in­come of Rs 9,454 crore.